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Saturday, Jun 06, 2020

The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day is currently being offered for free
on Steam (thanks SteamDB via Ant).
This post-apocalyptic adventure for Windows and macOS is yours to keep as long
as you pick up your copy before the offer ends on Tuesday. To clear up and
uncertainty about this here's a description:

Imagine making moral choices
in a world devoid of morality. Logic rules this world, and every decision is
just a set of zeros and ones. Most concepts take a whole new meaning, and some
get completely abolished. Luckily reasonable beings, even if not human, always
have a choice.

The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day is an story-driven adventure game set in a
post-apocalyptic world. You see it from the perspective of an engineering robot
RT-217NP, who seems to be very curious about the human race, long extinct in
wasting wars. Experience the mysterious vibe of each of carefully explored
locations. Test your skills, solving diverse puzzles. Make fateful decisions and
discuss intriguing matters to find out the whole truth being kept from
you.

THQ Nordic announces SpellForce 3 - Fallen God, an upcoming standalone
expansion for SpellForce 3 planned for release this year
on
Steam. This will add a new 15-hour single-player campaign, a new continent,
ranked multiplayer play, modding tools with Steam Workshop support, and more to
the RTS/RPG sequel. The more includes Trolls as a playable race, because who
doesn't like trolls? Wait, what? Here's the
Announcement Trailer
and here is what to expect:

When the gods have abandoned you, there is
only one hope for salvation: Find a new god! This is the conclusion Akrog,
chieftain of the Moonkin trolls, comes to. He leads his clan through the
continent of Urgath, struggling to survive. The player's mission is to guide the
new playable faction, the trolls, through an all-new 15-hour long singleplayer
campaign. SpellForce 3: Fallen God is a standalone expansion and can be played
without having played any SpellForce game before (but we would encourage
everyone to do so!) New features for the singleplayer campaign include:

Salvaging of weapons to craft superior equipment for your tribe
and your heroes

Character shaping throughout the single-player campaign:
The choices you make in the campaign affect your companion’s skills and
abilities. Plus they can contribute to the story through their own
decisions, based on how you previously shaped their character.

New playable faction: The Trolls. With their nomadic behavior,
Trolls have a different playstyle than all other factions in SpellForce 3

A new continent to explore: Urgath is full of mysteries and
adventures for you and your heroes to discover.

All-new soundtrack to underline the beauty and mystery of the new
continent

We're constantly taking action to maintain a culture of inclusion. Toxic
behavior changes and evolves rapidly and we recognize that we need to do more to
actively monitor and remove those individuals who perpetuate racist, xenophobic,
homophobic or sexist behavior in our games.

We are listening to all of you, and we'd like to share some of the specific
steps we've been taking and the steps we will be taking to bring change to our
games and communities in the fight against racism.

A
post on Reddit discusses a couple of issues with the
newly released
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection (thanks Ant). EA apologizes for
problems with online stability and game stuttering in the RTS remake and
discusses what's being done to fix things. Here's a bit:

Online
Stability
The first issue is the online stability of the game has been troublesome during
the launch today. We’ve seen some games getting disconnected, occasional
Quickmatch games failing upon load, and times when the online services are down
completely. This is not the experience we wanted you to have with the Remastered
Collection upon launch, and for that we sincerely apologize.

The team is working on further optimizations to the online infrastructure, and
how to efficiently expand server capacity in this launch window of high demand.
While we know many of you are eager to get into multiplayer, we certainly hope
you can enjoy the Campaign, Skirmish, or play with a new piece of UGC while we
work on these issues.

Game Stuttering
The second issue is that we are seeing reports of players who are experiencing
game stuttering while playing in both single player and multiplayer. We had
heard isolated incidents of this issue over the past few weeks with pre-launch
players, but were unable to gather enough data and diagnose the exact cause in
our research prior to launch.

Skelattack is now available for Windows, as Konami quietly released their
new platformer
on Steam this week as well as consoles (thanks
DSOGaming). This is a 2D platformer developed by indie Ukuza, and you can
see it in action in this
Launch Trailer. Here's word on this game where you start of
dead:

Being dead is not so bad when you have the Underworld to live in. An
expansive world inhabited by quirky, charming and sometimes deadly inhabitants
of the afterlife, the Underworld includes Aftervale, a happy hub where the dead
come to spend eternity.

You are Skully, member of the newly deceased and just when you start to get the
hang of being dead, your newfound home and friends are attacked by humans.
Instead of seeking gold or other treasure, they kidnap Aftervale's elder
skeleton Elzedon and then go after the magic that kindles the spirits of the
dead: the Blue Flame. Together with your best bat friend Imber, you have to
jump, slash, and flap your way though the Underworld and stop the human
threat!

Japanese indie developer Pocketpair announces Craftopia, a multiplayer
survival/action game they plan on bringing to Early Access
on Steam in
July. They are getting set to conduct closed alpha testing, and if this
interests you,
this
tweet explains how you can enter the lottery to be one of the participants.
Here's an Official Trailer
showing off the game, and here's a description:

Craftopia is the brand new
multiplayer open-world survival action game.

We have imagined what would happen when we combine our favorite video games
altogether.
Chop trees and mine stones as in Sandbox,
Explore the world as in Open-world,
Fight the hunger as in Survival,
Cultivate and harvest as in Farming,
Collect loots in dungeons as in Hack-and-slash,
Automate activities as in Factory management,
Hunt monsters and creatures as in Hunting action,
Cast magical spells as in Fantasy RPG.

Developer We Make Small games offers
a new trailer from
That Tiny Spaceship, a mashup arcade space-shooter inspired by classic
coin-op and console games of the 1980s. This will also include elements of a
visual novel, and they say a demo is coming to Steam this summer to show off
both aspects of the game. Here are some details on the game:

Genre’s
Collide

Single player space shooter inspired by the coin-op games and early home
console games of the 1980s.

4 missions - Beware obstacles and hazards lurk off screen!

Synth-wave inspired soundtrack

Colourful cast of characters who have enrolled in the D.R.O.O.L
institute’s program to become licensed single-occupancy drone pilots.

Publisher PlayWay announces Ninja Simulator, the latest in their
seemingly endless supply of (Noun) Simulator games is coming soon to
Steam.
They do not indicate if there are plans for this to sneak in any integration
with their upcoming
Samurai
Simulator. Here's a
trailer and here's a bit:

Be like a ghost
Silence is your ally. Darkness is your most trusty friend. Use them to get close
to your enemies, so they will never even see your blade cutting them into
pieces.

Take on impossible challenges
For a true ninja warrior there is no such thing like an impossible challenge.
Three enemies, seven, maybe an army? What is your definition of impossible?

Today marks the 76th anniversary of Operation Neptune, the allied invasion of
Normandy known as D-Day, the largest seaborne invasion in history. This kicked
off Operation Overlord, the Battle of Normandy, which reestablished the western
front and helped turn the tide during World War II. It's also the date of
another pivotal moment of World War II, as it's also part of the 78th
anniversary the Battle of Midway. Called one of the most significant naval
battles in history, this resulted in the sinking of two-thirds of Japan's
aircraft carriers, devastating their fleet.

343 Industries is looking for a Senior
Producer to work with our Core Services team to help develop a new project in
the Halo universe. This is your chance to work on one of the most exciting and
creative intellectual properties in the industry with one of the industry’s most
talented teams.

Electronic Arts
tweets that they are postponing their EA Play Live event by a week. This
replacement for their E3 presence was
planned for June 11th, but now it will begin on June 18th due to "the
important conversations taking place." Here's word:

EA Play Live

With the important conversations taking place and important voices being heard
around the world right now, we're moving our time to come together in play.

Valve announces that The Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition is postponed by a
week, and will now start on June 16th instead of June 9th as was originally
planned. Many of the recent game event postponements have cited ongoing civil
unrest and the Black Lives Matter movement as causes, but this terse announcement
does not go into reasons, saying simply:

The Steam Game Festival has been
rescheduled for Tuesday, June 16th thru June 22nd.

Blizzard
tweets that a World of Warcraft: Shadowlands livestream planned for
next week is also now part of the recent rash of game promotion postponements.
They don't specifically mention the Black Lives Matter movement, just that it's
the time for "more important voices" to be heard:

More important voices
than ours need to be heard, and now is the time to listen.

We are postponing our upcoming World of Warcraft: Shadowlands livestream planned
for June 9, and will share more details about the expansion in the
future.

A
developer update for Crucible announces that two of its game modes are being
"retired," just a couple of weeks after the
launch of this team-based shooter from Relentless Studios and Amazon (thanks
Eurogamer). They say they will continue the game's pre-season to work on
priority issues
like voice chat and to go "all-in on the parts of Crucible that are resonating
most strongly with you, our community." Word is this means they will focus on
the Heart of the Hives mode that's proven to be the most popular of the three
launch modes:

Our plan for this updated game direction will have two
phases. In the first, we will build and iterate on the core systems necessary to
support this Heart of the Hives-centered vision for the game. We’re starting the
first phase by developing the features we know we need: voice chat, a surrender
option, a system to deal with AFK players ruining matches, an expanded ping
system, and potentially some form of mini-map. We don’t have an exhaustive list
of changes yet, but those are some of our top priorities. While we’re working on
adding those features, we’ll also be working on improving framerate, hit
feedback, matchmaking, and how we teach the game to new players.

In the second phase, we will add additional systems and polish that will help
elevate the Crucible experience. A lot of the work in this second phase will
depend on what we hear from you during phase one. Right now our plans for
improvements in the second phase include custom tailoring the map for Heart of
the Hives, improving the creatures in the world, adding support for custom
games, and enhanced social system functionality.

EA announces the release of the new Eco Lifestyle for The Sims 4
for Windows, macOS, and consoles, offering a dumpster dive of options to help
your Sims go green. Here's a
Gameplay Trailer and
here's word on this homage to sustainability:

Maxis™, a studio of
Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA), today announced that The Sims™ 4 saw more
monthly players this past quarter than ever before, and continues to deliver
new, fresh content for its players with the launch of The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle*,
the ninth expansion pack that is available today for PC, Mac, PlayStation®4 and
Xbox One. The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle gives players the opportunity to learn how to
maintain a sustainable lifestyle and the importance of collaborating with the
community, as every small change can make an impact.

This new expansion pack arrives at a time when The Sims 4 has seen more than 2.5
million new players join the community in the past two months. The game has also
seen a peak high of nearly 10 million playing the game monthly in the past
quarter, as The Sims 4 continues to be a source of great fun and joy for players
looking to recreate life’s special moments. The Sims 4 is seeing what a force
the community can be when they come together in play. Through the game’s
inclusion of diverse, creative, and fun experiences, players can create unique
Sims, design their perfect homes, and craft their own stories.

Vertigo Gaming announces Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! will be out of the
oven and ready to serve this autumn. This is a bit of a delay, as when the game
entered Early Access earlier
this year they said it would come in Q2. They also announce a new
version 0.90 Davidson County Update is now live in the game. Additionally,
all three games in the series are currently on sale
on Steam, either individually, or as part of a trilogy bundle. Here's what
they're cooking up here:

Hit the road in this massive sequel and travel
across war-torn America to participate in the Iron Cook National Food Truck
Championships with your trusty robot crew Whisk -- voiced by negaoryx -- and
Cleaver — voiced by Havana Mahoney. Set in the radically-changed USA of 2042,
play through the all new story-driven campaign where you cook hundreds of foods
-- including many brand new to the series -- across hundreds of levels in a new
gameplay structure that has been completely redesigned to deliver fast paced
action, or take it easy with the all new Chill Mode that can be toggled on or
off at any time!

Play through the campaign via single player or with a friend in local co-op
(with the ability to change on the fly), upgrade your food truck with dozens of
gameplay-affecting modules, expand your food catalog, and race to the nation’s
new capital in Nashville, Tennessee, to prove once and for all that you’re still
the best chef in the world.

Steam digital Standard Editions include the remastered versions of Tiberian
Dawn and Red Alert, plus all three expansion packs (Covert Operations,
Counterstrike, and The Aftermath), and
tons of bonus features and improvements.

What began as a conflict over
the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machine has escalated into a war
that has decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm have all but exhausted
the resources of the entire galaxy in their struggle for domination. Choose your
side, build an army, and crush your enemies on huge, three-dimensional
battlefields. And remember, there is no such thing as "too many guns"!

Includes Total Annihilation and both its expansion packs - The Core
Contingency and Battle Tactics

A timeless classic that has won over 57 awards!

Epic battles with hundreds of units accompanied by frantic music
composed by Jeremy Soule and hundreds of available mods

The Guerrilla Collective came together to create
to create a space where we all find a voice to support each other, our industry
and our work. It is the cumulative effort of incredibly diverse teams unified in
the creation of a digital event to bring hope and positive content to the world.

We recognize this is a time for action and for voices speaking out for justice
and change to be heard. We stand united for change, for justice, and in support
of Black Lives Matter.

We are announcing here that our event is moving to June 13, 14, and 15. We are
preparing a live stream for June 7 to highlight Black voices in our industry,
dedicated exclusively to showcasing games created by Black developers, titles
featuring Black protagonists, and conversations with these creators. We will
have more details to share shortly.

Early Access to Sentimental K is now available
on Steam,
offering a 3D action/roguelike from Korean developer Fordays. They say the Early
Access version already contains most of the game's planned features. A
Gameplay Trailer shows
this in action, helping you to decide if this is a Special K or just OK. Here's
the announcement:

Sentimental K is a video game that integrates dynamic
and intuitive 3D action with Rogue-like genre which adds freshness every
gameplay in an attempt to challenge the new genre. Players can combine five
types of weapons, eighty skills, and a hundred artifacts in various ways to
enjoy battles, stylish action, and to defeat stages.

As you play the game, new weapons, skills, and artifacts will become available
for more diverse combinations. Particularly, due to the nature of the Rogue-like
genre, every gameplay is different based on the choice. Moreover, the visual and
the play experience of 3D action will provide a whole new entertainment. Players
will be able to play three Acts which is prepared with sixty-nine unique stages.
As players complete the game, the more challenging elements await. Also, there
are various entertaining elements including fifty distinct events, twenty
disciplines, and seventy
achievements

This post announces the relaunch of Agents: Biohunterson Steam,
an Early Access MOBA from Playstark. This
first launched in April but was
quickly pulled to address complaints of bugs and other problems. Word is:
"As promised, we have been putting in all of our love and hard work into
developing the features that YOU want in the game. We, Playstark: the developers
of Agents: Biohunters, are giving it our best and more to make Agents:
Biohunters the game of your dreams." Here's word on the game:

THE WORLD
OF Agents: Biohunters
The world has been infected by a bioparticle-like substance, causing the
environment to evolve and wildlife to mutate. The Agents have banded together to
ensure planet Earth’s survival through this bio-crisis, but there are some who
wish to use this substance for their own sinister motives. Your mission as a
Biohunter Agent is to save the world by hunting down mutant creatures and
defeating anyone or anything standing in your path to victory.

HUNT WAVES OF CREATURES
In every match, you'll need to hunt waves of creatures to gain experience, which
will help you level up and upgrade your Agents' abilities. When the creatures
drop blue bioparticles, collect them and use them to spawn buildings that will
support you during the match.

I thought my virtual doctor's appointment yesterday went quite well. This was
finally a follow-up on our physicals from a few months ago so it made sense for
a teleconference just to discuss test results. We did not like the doctor who
did our original checkups, but MrsBlue and I liked the new doctor a lot, so we
will stick with her. This will be my first female doctor, which I'm imagining
will make the more intimate aspects of my next in-person check both more and
less awkward. I can definitely see why many of you said that this is probably
the future of medicine. Some consultations with a doctor just require
conversation, so it will save everyone time, effort, and exposure to illness to
avoid office visits when they are unnecessary. As an example, even via video she
was able to confirm my self-diagnosis of tendonitis. She says the wraps I bought
to help with this were the right move, and suggested a heating pad as an
additional treatment.

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